By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

The Ministry for Health and Welfare will mandate all hospitals to report possible brain-dead patients to it and ask their families if they are willing to donate the patients' organs.

The guideline was designed to cope with the shortage of donated organs and tissue for transplants. Some 5,000 patients were diagnosed as brain dead last year, but only 391 were reported as donors.

A total of 17,055 people were waiting for donations in 2009, but only 18 percent received new organs.

"This reporting practice is common in the U.S. and other countries. Time is crucial when it comes to organ transplants. However, due to the shortage of donors, patients have to queue up for more than three years. Some of them die during the waiting period," Cho Ji-eun, a the ministry official, said.

The government and hospitals will dispatch consultants to persuade families to donate the organs of the brain-dead.

Currently, no organs are taken from the body if the families object. "The prior notification system will enhance efficacy and efficiency," Cho said.

Korea is behind the world's leading countries in organ donations.

In addition, donation of tissue and blood will also be encouraged. Currently, about 87 percent of donated bone, joint, muscle tissues and others are imported and blood supplements barely meet demand.

Most blood donors are soldiers or students.

The government is seeking legislation to establish a "BioBank" that would collect the genetic information of more than half a million people by 2012.

bjs@koreatimes.co.kr